“No detail, however small?”
“I don’t think so.”
Tommy sighed.
“That makes the task harder,” he observed. “You must often have noticed, Mr. Stavansson, in reading of crime, how one small detail is all the great detective needs to set him on the track. I may say that this case presents some unusual features. I have, I think, practically solved it already, but time will show.”
He picked up a violin which lay on the table, and drew the bow once or twice across the strings. Tuppence ground her teeth and even the explorer blenched. The performer laid the instrument down again.
“A few chords from Mosgovskensky,” he murmured. “Leave me your address, Mr. Stavansson, and I will report progress to you.”
As the visitor left the office, Tuppence grabbed the violin and putting it in the cupboard turned the key in the lock.
“If you must be Sherlock Holmes,” she observed, “I’ll get you a nice little syringe and a bottle labelled Cocaine, but for God’s sake leave that violin alone. If that nice explorer man hadn’t been as simple as a child, he’d have seen through you. Are you going on with the Sherlock Holmes touch?”
“I flatter myself that I have carried it through very well so far,” said Tommy with some complacence. “The deductions were good, weren’t they? I had to risk the taxi. After all, it’s the only sensible way of getting to this place.”
“It’s lucky I had just read the bit about his engagement in this morning’s Daily Mirror ,” remarked Tuppence.